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NOTHING QUITE LIKE IT BY THE EDITOR It’s not always that one comes away from a conference feeling optimistic, but there was positive energy at the inaugural Business of Opera summit, convened by the Laidlaw Opera Trust in London in October. My glass-half-full impression may have had something to do with the fact that I was able to attend only half the day, but certainly it felt as if people were serious about tackling the obstacles opera faces in the wider world. The delegates were, inevitably, a mix of those already in receipt of Laidlaw money and those who would probably like a slice of the cake, though independent parties also showed up. Proceedings got off to an eye-catching start with the presentation of a report into what the UK public thinks about opera: a Laidlaw commission from the Public First consultancy, it suggested a wider openness to experiencing the art form than politicians or media generally admit. Some fascinating data should encourage the opera sector to engage more with the attitudes of the general public, who evidently recognize that there is nothing else quite like opera—surely something to be emphasized and celebrated. Not that companies can afford to be unrealistic about the challenges of turning those who see opera as a bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime experience into more regular visitors. Attracting audiences is the easy bit; holding on to them is harder. The low point was an address by Arts Council England’s director of music, Claire Mera-Nelson. Her disingenuous performance coincided with the release that very day of a new ACE report—revisiting its own response to its own cuts—that acknowledged serious shortcomings in its analysis of the operatic climate. Yet nothing this apparatchik said here suggested a change of heart, and no one can realistically expect an uplift in opera funding, given the £22 billion hole in public finances—a figure approaching Britain’s Brexit divorce bill, though few seem to have made that connection yet—of which the government keeps warning. Lively panel discussions drew attention to the fact that talk of the next generation of opera-goers doesn’t automatically need to mean younger patrons, as so often assumed— new audiences of any age are welcome. Though we can all agree that opera may not be for everyone, everyone should at least have an opportunity to experience it, which is where—as some UK panellists felt—that elite gatekeeping is still in place, with companies needing to do more to remind people that opera’s stories are everyone’s stories. Though London is one of the world’s most diverse cities, the consensus was that Covent Garden lags behind New York’s Metropolitan Opera in terms of audience diversity. In his keynote speech, the Met’s general manager Peter Gelb said, ‘It is the responsibility of the Met to win new audiences for opera, since no matter how venerable our 141-year-old opera company is, there is no free pass into the remainder of the 21st century.’ Gelb also described the current strategy of producing more new work than any other major company as ‘a calculated risk’, adding: ‘the greatest risk of all is not taking the risk’. Other US initiatives, such as Opera Philadelphia’s current Pick Your Price plan, ought also to be watched with interest over here if more people are to realize this about opera: there really is nothing quite like it. Opera, December 2024 1587

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